


Passing of a Burden

by Anarchyinplasma



Series: Life and Times of a Risen [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9519395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarchyinplasma/pseuds/Anarchyinplasma
Summary: Arcturus has a cannon Cayde has never seen before, he's curious.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hope anyone who reads enjoys this one. I've started writing more and more backstory for my guardian, so I thought I'd put it up, see if anyone enjoys it.

Cayde looked up from his ‘official vanguard-ly duties(™)’ and towards the hunter that had just walked in, traipsing Martian dust across the chamber, (he was very glad Zavala and Ikora were out, they would probably command him to clean it up), said hunter stopped at the table and removed his hood, allowing his white hair to go back to it’s usual mess. Cayde raised an eyebrow, and the hunter responded in kind.

“What?” Cayde gestured the the trail across the normally clean vanguard lobby. Arcturus scoffed.  
“Oh please, Zavala can clean it up, he likes that sort of thing, everything must be ‘neat und tidy!’” Cayde opened his mouth to disagree, but found he couldn’t.  
“Anyway,” said Arcturus, as Callahan materialised the head of a Vex Gate Lord on the table, “I got what you wanted, though why you wanted the head of a Gate Lord I have no clue.” Cayde shrugged.  
“It'll look nice on my wall.”

After detecting no hint of irony, Callahan levelled it’s gaze at the hunter vanguard.  
“You had us traipse all over Mars, and enter a knife fight with a five story killer robot with time control because you wanted an ornament for your wall…?” Cayde shrugged again.  
“Yeah. So?” Seeing the look being directed at him by ghost and risen alike, he elaborated. “Come on, a Gate Lord’s not gonna kill you, you’ve killed a god, hell, you’ve killed a Gate Lord before.” Callahan gave out a mechanical sigh.

“You specified no bullet damage, you said we had to take it down with a knife!” He turned to his risen, “why aren’t you more irate by this!?” Arcturus shrugged and leaned on the table.  
“The fact that I have become bored by your insanity is rather depressing Cayde.” Cayde shrugged.  
“Eh, it’s what I’m paid for.” Arcturus laughed and turned to leave, as he did so, Cayde caught a glimpse of a hand cannon through a new tear in his cloak, holstered behind his waist, normally hidden from sight, unlike First Curse, which was practically flaunted in his hip holster. This cannon was dark, it seemed to exude darkness, and from the only part that really caught the light, Cayde could tell the handle was wrapped in scraps of fabric.

“You get another cannon?” Arcturus froze. Looking slightly over his shoulder.  
“What?” his voice was cold, subtly telling Cayde to leave it alone. Well alone. Sadly, Cayde had never been very good at reading subtle signals.  
“That cannon, the one behind your cloak.” Arcturus shifted slightly, into a stance almost prepared to turn and quickdraw if Cayde didn’t know better.  
“No,” the older hunter replied, “I’ve had it awhile, it belonged to an old friend.”  
“How old?” Cayde asked.  
“Risen old.” Was the reply.

The dots started to connect in Cayde’s head, a chill ran up where his spine should be, settling in a feeling of dread coiled low in his emotional cortex.  
“Is that what I think it is?” He asked. His voice would have been coarse if exo’s could have coarse voices. Arcturus half turned, a pleading look in his eyes.  
“Please Cayde, leave it alone. She’s not been used to hurt anyone in a long time.” Cayde eyebrow plates shot upwards.  
“You use it for other purposes?” he growled, subtly shifting his weight and coaxing his light to the ready, rods of flame filled his veins, waiting to spill into the corporeal world. Arcturus relaxed his posture and walked forward. Face to face with his vanguard and long past student.  
“No,” he ground out, voice like shards of ice; “and put that light away Cayde, we both know who’s winning an engagement.” The flames of his gun snaked away back up his arm, to their normal place of coiling around his heart, or at least that’s what it felt like.

“Why do you have that?” he asked; defeated. “Why do you have Thorn?” Arcturus sighed and sat on the table.  
“Do you know how Yor became a nightstalker? He liked to claim he was the first, which, obviously” he gestured to himself, “was not true.” Cayde shook his head, this was a part he was always curious about.

“Thorn is shadows and darkness, to understand how to corral her, you need to understand those concepts, if you’re a gunslinger, or a bladedancer, she’ll corrupt you, you’ll be a nightstalker, but if you aren’t one by nature, she’ll eat you away. I know shadows and darkness Cayde, I’m a Risen, I know how lawlessness works, I know how to keep that hunger at bay. Someone has to carry the gun, the burden. Who better than me?”

Cayde nodded.  
“I’m not happy about it, but I get it.” Arcturus nodded.  
“I don’t use her Cayde. Never.” Cayde nodded back.  
“See it stays that way.” Arcturus smiled and replied with a glib,  
“Come on Cayde, have I ever let you down?” Cayde returned to studying his map as the hunter marched towards the doorway, melting sideways into the shadows on the wall for camouflage as Ikora and Zavala walked past, making faces at the dune that had been tracked in on Arcturus’s boots.

Cayde smirked, ‘first nightstalker’?, Yor wouldn’t have stood a chance.


End file.
